News from the den – mafia, money and more
As always, the pack at Painted Wolf Wines is constantly on the move, spreading the word on wine and wild dogs. Expanding our paw print Jeremy and Amanda have been busy spreading the word, in Johannesburg, KZN, and across the Cape. We have been delighted…
Painted Wolf wins trophy for Most Successful Producer Overall at 2019 Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show
Painted Wolf Wines took top honours at the 2019 Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show on Tuesday June 4 2019. Out of the 956 wines from 206 producers, Painted Wolf Wines was awarded trophies for the Top Niche White for The Pack Roussanne 2018 and…
Painted Wolf has two of the top 100 Wines for 2019
We are thrilled to announce that once again we have two wines in the Double Platinum/Top 100 in the 2019 National Wine Challenge/Top 100 competition. Jeremy, our winemaker and founder had this to say: “What could be better than a life spent doing what one…
Megan’s harvest adventure
For most of March, Jeremy was running from pillar to post, keeping up with all his harvesting jobs. As we mentioned in our previous post – Jeremy is always on the lookout for interesting parcels of grapes, and their different locations keep him on the…
Reliving 2007 in 2019 – Emma reports from the vineyards
Emma is thoroughly enjoying being able to spend more time than usual in the vineyards this harvest with her grape transportation skills in demand. It provides a great opportunity to photograph the journey of some of our grapes, returning to old favourites like Kasteelsig vineyard…
Let’s start at the very beginning,
A very good place to start. Before Do-re-mi gets stuck in your heads, let’s get stuck into this story. In celebration of the end of a very busy year, Jeremy has decided to offer two very special wines at the tasting and sales room in…
End of year opening hours and treats for visitors
If you have been following our shenanigans in Paarl, you would have heard about our tasting and sales room opening in Paarl and how we have extended our hours on Wednesdays to 8 p.m. and we are calling it “Wine on Wednesdays” or #WOW in…
Move-ember and beyond
If you think this year has gone past fast, then consider the 5 weeks (35 days) at Painted Wolf Wines and compare us to the painted wolves we love so much – we have been on the trot, covering thousands of kilometres to spread the…
Tasting room opening celebration
If you happened to drive past the historic house at 125 Main Road, Paarl on Wednesday October 31st, you might have seen it decked out in bunting, with various signs exhorting people to pop in. If you had stopped and come in you would have…
Autumnal feasts and wine tasting wanderings.
Jeremy is once again off on a wander around the UK with stops for dinners, lectures and in- store tastings. All details are available on our events page on this website, but we thought it would be fun to give you a run down here….
Getting Painted Wolves a seat at the table
When most people hear the words African wildlife conservation, they are most likely to think of rhinos, elephants and lions. This is mainly because the conservation conversations in the last few years have revolved around the appetite for wildlife products in Asia and the poverty…
A den for the pack at Painted Wolf Wines
Painted Wolf Wines Tasting room is OPEN – Visit us at 125 MAIN ROAD, PAARL! Jeremy, Emma and the rest of the ‘pack’ are delighted to have found a special space on the ‘golden mile’ of Main Road Paarl. Number 125, is a historic house…
Collaring some great food and wine in Kwazulu-Natal
Our pack have been on the move almost constantly since April. Jeremy meandered around KZN, Jo’burg and the Lowveld, while Emma explored new areas of Zambia and caught up with all the travel professionals at Indaba, World Travel Market Africa and We Are Africa. In…
The lighter side of winning
When you enter the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) you are going up against some of the most famous wine brands in the world, so winning any award is extremely gratifying. This year, 275 judges blind tasted 16903 wines from around the world. Here is…
Unusual wines in the cellar
Anyone who knows Jeremy, knows that he likes creating wines that are not run of the mill – Viognier, Roussanne, and Grenache are good examples. When offered a few tons of unusual grapes, he is unlikely to say no. This past week, he took delivery…
Wine and wanderings around KZN
While Emma was preparing for ProWein in Germany, Jeremy was roaming around KZN with our reps in the region. One of the visits included Blackstrap in Ballito, where our Lycaon Grenache will soon be available. Olive and Oil in Umhlanga will be listing our Den…
Launching Guillermo Swartland Pinotage 2014
Our Swartland Pinotage ‘Guillermo’ 2013, with its velvety ripe blueberry, mulberry, exotic spice and creamy vanilla flavours is almost sold out. We are proud to announce that we will be launching Guillermo Swartland Pinotage 2014 at Prowein. We invite you to come and taste it…
Wine, woman power and singing praises
Wine Last week, the team had rather a hectic week. The amazing Mourvèdre and Shiraz grapes growing at Kasteelsig vineyard in the Swartland were ripe and ready to be made into intense flavourful wine. At the same time, Jeremy had to be up in Jo’burg…
News from the African Wildlife Conservation Fund
Jeremy got the following news from the African Wildlife Conservation Fund: A successful denning season What a wonderful denning season we had down in the Zimbabwean Lowveld in 2017. Our scouts were kept on their toes monitoring the 21 (out of 27) resident pack…
Wanderings at harvest time
Our pack Whatsapp group recently went on a pinging bonanza as Jeremy shared his photos from the field. He had taken a cycle to Leeuwenkuil and Langvlei to check on the state of the grapes before he briefly flits off to London for the North…
Vote for beauty
For the third year in a row, Painted Wolf Wines have stepped up as sponsors of Nature’s Best Photography Africa. This exhibition of spectacular photographs is on at the Iziko South Africa museum until March 4, 2018. There are so many reasons we are happy…
Wild dog news from Painted Dog Conservation
Jeremy subscribes to the Painted Dog newsletter and received this news from Peter Blinston: 2017 came crashing to an end for all of us at PDC. In the past weeks, we have witnessed the tragic demise of the Mabuyamabhema pack, who succumbed to rabies. Our desperation…
Happy Doggy days
Wine Wow! We have had quite a year! Our 10th birthday heralded an increase in sales, a new website and some very nice awards. Thank you to all of you who are such steadfast fans of our wines. It is you who spread the word…
November – update from KZN
Jeremy received this month’s update from Cole Du Plessis of the EWT – it continues the saga of the wild dog population in KZN: “November has been a fruitful month in maintaining and expanding South Africa’s wild dog metapopulation. The greatest highlight of all was…
Painted Wolf update from the field
Earlier this month, Jeremy recieved an email from Cole Du Plessis of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, giving an update on his work in the field with African wild dogs (he refers to them throughout as Painted Wolves which we can’t fault). Cole’s report Early in…
In the pink
Rosé wine is one of the fastest growing categories in the wine world. Between 2007 and 2014, rosé wine sales in South Africa trebled. The Rosé Rocks competition started 3 years ago, and last year our 2016 Den Pinotage Rosé was in the Top 11…
20 places to meet Jeremy and try our wines during September in the UK
Jeremy is off to the UK for a wander between wine tastings. Actually, some days it’ll be less of a wander and more like a frenzied dash across the country. He is looking forward to catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. He…
Where do our donations go?
Charitable contributions are sometimes looked at with scepticism. When we say a portion of our profits go towards African wild dog conservation, it is hard to quantify exactly where it makes landfall and which specific programmes it goes towards, unless it is a direct contribution…
A label designer, a wine promoter and the road less travelled
On the last day of July, Amanda (Jeremy’s sister and the Gauteng Painted Wolf Wines promoter) and I set off from Johannesburg in the Painted Wolf vehicle, laden with what seemed like way too much stuff. We were making a dash for the border, specifically…
Awards – our wines perform well in the beginning of the year
We started the year off with some great awards for our wines. If you are a follower on facebook, you would have noticed an increase in photos of Jeremy holding certificates and looking proud. National Wine Challenge/Top 100 wines 2017 At the National Wine challenge/Top…
News from Painted Dog Conservation
Peter Blinston sent this news: Life Saving Collars The first three months of 2107 have already been intensely busy, particularly in providing protection for the Nyamandlovu pack. For some months now we have been concerned about the shift in the Nyamandlovu pack’s territory, which has…
Emma’s report from Kagoshima and Taiwan
It was a whirlwind four days in Kagoshima in the far South of Japan, where our importer Homboshoten is based. It took over 30 hour’s door to door, and I barely had a chance to take in the famous volcano across the bay as we…
The pack pow – wow in Paarl
In January this year, two Gauteng pack members (it doesn’t quite have the same ring as Vaalies), Amanda and I (label designer Lori) flew down for a gathering of the pack. We had a lot to discuss, from new websites to social media strategies, to…
Dinner for the dogs in a deluge
Our fund raising evening on Wednesday started out very ominously with the mother of all storms breaking over much of Joburg. In fact it was so bad in the east of the city, the roads around OR Tambo airport were completely flooded and the N1…
Dinner for the dogs
Many people are astonished to hear that there are fewer than 450 African wild dogs left in South Africa today. The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) recognised the plight of this species back in 1997 and began a multi-faceted programme to attempt to increase their numbers. …
Painting the town red (and silver)
A handful of our reds were winners at the recent International Wine and Spirit Awards. Peloton Rouge 2013 (a predominantly Shiraz and Pinotage Cape Blend) won a Silver Outstanding in the Category: Syrah Dominated Red Blends. The other two Silver Outstanding awards went to the…
Amanda roves from wine show to wine show
Mercury Wine Week Our roving pack member, Amanda (pictured above with Jeremy) is currently at the Mercury Wine Week. It takes place in the Champion’s Room at Greyville Racecourse in Durban. She will be pouring our wines and chatting up a storm every day this…
Emma’s report from Zambia
Here I am at last, sitting on the banks of the Luangwa River at Flatdogs Camp, watching the hippos frolic in the water through the tall grass, and admiring the thick forest vegetation on the opposite bank stretching as far as the eye can see…
Roussanne and reds – Old Mutual Wine Trophy results
This time of year is always interesting. Having submitted our wines for judging, we wait impatiently for the results of the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show. The only inkling that we get is the heads-up notification to be ready to take part in the public tastings…
Food, wine and conversations with Emma
At the beginning of May, Emma was our travel and tourism ambassador at two important showcases in South Africa. We are Africa, May 2 – 5 We teamed up with Leading Hotels of the World at the We Are Africa Exhibition 2016 at Cape Town…
The Wild Dogs in and around Kruger – an update from the field
Grant Beverley from The Endangered Wildlife Trust sent us his update from the field, including feedback from the census we sponsored: “After another constructive meeting with SANParks and the State Vet services a project proposal will be submitted to continue monitoring of Wild Dogs within…
National Wine Challenge/Top 100 SA wines 2016
We are thrilled to announce that nine of our wines won awards at the National Wine Challenge/Top 100 SA wines 2016. This is fantastically appropriate for our ninth birthday month, so there is much celebration at the den. Double Gold Winners were mainly whites with…
9 things we are thankful for on our ninth birthday
As it’s our birthday month and we are nine years old, we thought it would be apt to look back at nine aspects of our company that sum it all up. Beginnings: Painted Wolf Wines was founded by Jeremy and Emma on 4th April 2007….
Wine adventures – February 28 – March 4, 2016
Jeremy is up in Jo’burg for a few days and will be taking us on a few wine adventures while he is here. Wine adventures at Copperlake Brewing Co. Sunday February 28th from 14h00 – 16h00 Jeremy and Amanda will be at Copperlake Brewing Company,…
2015 review and February events
We are trying to find a bit of breathing space in the busy beginning of this year, to reflect on an amazing 2015. Last year, Jeremy and Emma divided the globe into West and East respectively. Jeremy visited customers in the USA and then went…
Wildlife photographer of the year
We are thrilled to be sponsors of the South African arm of this international event. I am sure a lot of you have seen the photos on facebook, of HRH Prince Harry, visiting the exhibition and chatting to Emma and then Jeremy. He walked away…
Wine club – join our pack
We’ve had a few ultra busy weeks with the wine flowing and fans enjoying the flow. The Veritas public tastings in Cape Town and Durban, The De Beers conference, the Endangered Wildlife Trust AGM, a few private tastings and the launch of our wine club….
Tasting Veritas gold and other adventures in wine
We are thrilled to announce that we have been awarded 9 medals in total at this year’s Veritas awards. Gold: “Penny” Swartland Viognier 2014 Silver: The Den Chenin Blanc 2015, Pictus II 2010 Bronze: The Den Cabernet Sauvignon 2013; Peloton Rouge 2012; Black Pack Shiraz…
Soaring Words from the Flying Winemaker
Who is the flying winemaker? Eddie McDougall is an award-winning winemaker, wine judge, columnist and host of the TV series The Flying Winemaker on Discovery Network’s TLC. Through his show and through a combination of guerilla wine tasting events, innovative marketing & media promotion, wine…
Roussanne and wild dogs
Our Black Pack Roussanne won a silver medal that the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Awards 2015. Jeremy has used this grape as a fantastic addition to our white blends, a traditional use for this particular varietal, but has also ventured into presenting it as a…